The vote to approve Sadeq Mahsouli came two weeks after Parliament fired Ali Kordan after it became clear that he did not hold a doctorate degree from Oxford University.

The dismissals of Iraqi oversight officials come as estimates of corruption in the country have soared.

Objections were voiced a day after the Iraqi cabinet approved the pact and sent it to Parliament for ratification.

The trial of a politically connected businessman and member of parliament charged with ordering the killing of Lebanese singer has riveted public attention in the Arab world.

Traces of uranium found at a Syrian site bombed by Israel are not sufficient evidence of undeclared nuclear activity, the director of International Atomic Energy Agency said.

Israel said that it would release 250 Palestinian prisoners next month as a gesture to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

A bomb exploded in a car carrying one of Israel’s top mafia kingpins, killing him and threatening to unleash an all-out war in Israel’s increasingly violent underworld.

Archaeologists have found evidence of the 138th pyramid in Cairo, but these monuments to Egypt’s early ingenuity are also an ever-present symbol of faded glory.

The anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr called for armed resistance against any security agreement that allowed a continued U.S. presence in Iraq.

Iraq’s cabinet approved a security agreement that calls for a full withdrawal of American troops from the country by the end of 2011.

Israel’s leaders ratcheted up their rhetoric Sunday after an Israeli airstrike killed four Palestinian militants in Hamas-run Gaza, leaving a five-month truce in tatters.

Mr. Sheehan’s perceptive, literate dispatches from the Middle East, Africa and Central America explored the political machinations of the powerful and the misery of the powerless.

Iraq’s political leaders held a high-level meeting to gauge support for a security agreement that will determine the future role and presence of American forces in Iraq, but it ended without any clear public resolution.

The Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda has released a statement claiming responsibility for a suicide bombing outside the American Embassy compound in Sana in September.

Hamas officials said the attack was revenge for the deaths over the past 11 days of 11 militants and the recent increased Israeli closing of Gaza crossings.

The campaign Web site of Benjamin Netanyahu, the conservative Likud leader running for prime minister of Israel, looks suspiciously like Barack Obama’s.

The portable, furtive bomb known as a “sticky bomb” is fast becoming the device of choice for insurgents.

Michael V. Hayden said that Al Qaeda is strengthening its hub in Pakistan and building new ties in Africa.

Israel should not parse the Arab peace plan, the Saudi foreign minister said after a speech by Israel’s president during a two-day interfaith dialogue at the U.N.

While most settlers vow never to abandon the heart of the Jewish homeland, some say they want to move back to within the pre-1967 borders of Israel.